The Magic Kingdom, the Court and the Cable Film

For weeks, the imploded relationship between moguls Michael Eisner and Michael Ovitz has played out like a Hollywood drama in a Delaware courtroom.

Now, it’s really going to be one.

Showtime Networks Inc. confirmed Friday that it had put on the fast track a script for a two-hour TV film called “Two Blind Mice.”

The project, first reported in Variety, is expected to detail how Eisner, as Walt Disney Co.’s chief executive, hired his friend Ovitz to be president in 1995, only to fire him about a year later.

“The story is Shakespearean in a lot of ways,” said Richard Licata, Showtime’s executive vice president. “It’s the story of two titans, once friends, who made choices in their careers that ultimately impacted themselves, their friendship and the Disney empire.”

Licata described the project as “embryonic” with no set date. Screenwriter Frederic Raphael is writing the script.

Shareholders are suing to recoup a severance package given to Ovitz that they estimate to be worth more than $140 million. A parade of past Disney directors, including actor Sidney Poitier, have been testifying this week that Eisner was justified in firing Ovitz but that Disney was obligated to pay off Ovitz’s contract because he did not engage in gross negligence or malfeasance.

The film would mark the first time Eisner has been portrayed on screen.

Ovitz’s character, however, was in the 1996 HBO film “The Late Shift” about the network battles involving talk show hosts David Letterman and Jay Leno. Actor Treat Williams played Ovitz, who, as Hollywood’s top agent, orchestrated Letterman’s move from NBC to CBS.

A movie on the Eisner-Ovitz debacle would fulfill a prediction made by maverick filmmaker Michael Moore in a Los Angeles Times commentary shortly after Ovitz was fired. In the piece, Moore endorsed Williams to reprise his role.

“His portrayal of Ovitz in last year’s HBO movie ‘The Late Shift’ was inspired,” Moore wrote. “There surely will be a film made on this current melodrama.”